Startling statistics have revealed at least three quarters of people made redundant by Hammersmith and Fulham Council this year have been women.

But the authority has denied claims from public union GMB, which says the figure is closer to 100 per cent.

Labour MP Andy Slaughter seized on the figures, saying that, whichever is correct, the council has a lot to answer for.

He said: "Hammersmith and Fulham Tories have added discrimination against women to their concerted attacks on the homeless, council tenants, the elderly and disabled, proving once again that they are the nastiest part of the nasty Party."

However, it is not clear which number is correct after the council and GMB clashed over their accuracy.

The GMB says it obtained the figures, which had been provided by the authority itself, through the Office for National Statistics. It says the workforce has fallen, either through redundancy, natural wastage, or transfer, since last year by 321 from 5,723, with every one of those to leave women. It says two men were hired making a new employee number of 5,402.

The council says in actual fact 181 men left along with 457 women, reducing worker numbers by 638 to 5,085. That is still a reduction in women of more than 71 per cent from last year.

A spokesman for the GMB responded to the council's claims that it's figures were inaccurate by calling the authority 'laughable' for disputing data it itself provided to the Office for National Statistics.

The union believes there will be far-reaching consequences for many families in the capital as a result of the figures.

London-wide, women made up 60 per cent of the number of people to have lost their local authority posts.

GMB general secretary Paul Hayes said: "This was entirely predictable because the public sector employs more women than men.

"The drop in the number of women employed in the public sector means a serious loss of income from employment to women in the London region. Many households depend on having income from two wage earners to pay the mortgage and the household bills.

"The impact will be even worse in the quarter of households with children that are headed by lone parents, 90 per cent of whom are women."

Overall in London, the drop in the number of workers employed by boroughs this year was 10,607, 6,366 of whom were females.

Councillor Harry Phibbs, cabinet member for community engagement, said: "This is a deliberate and cynical attempt to misinterpret the statistics. The truth of the matter is that women make-up over two thirds of the total number of staff at Hammersmith & Fulham and account for an almost identical percentage of staff who have left the council in the last year."